Turkey Shoot

I've been wondering about the logic behind the Armenian genocide resolution for several days. Morally, it's an easy mark, until you consider the ramifications of one of our friends going to the trouble of drafting a parliamentary resolution to condemn us for slavery or annihilating Indians. It's a needless political embarrassment to a critical ally in the region, and they're completely pissed about it. And now we're asking for their help with Kurds and border incursions. Smooth move, folks.

So what exactly has been accomplished here, a few Armenian activist groups in L.A. and Fresno are a little happier? Cool. But why now, when it could not possibly be more unhelpful, when we need Turkey's help and cooperation in the region, and they're trying to modernize and get into the EU with their own Islamists mucking around. There is no practical reason to do this at this specific moment in time. (Yes, it should have been done decades ago, but again we have our own ugly reasons why such symbolic face-slaps are rarely undertaken retroactively.)

When buffoons such as Dan Burton and George W. Bush look like the voices of sense and reason, you know something's out of whack. But whatever. Guess the Democrats can put another notch on their bedpost now. Forget about standing tall on current issues such as illegal wiretapping and pouring more lives and money down a bloody hole, but if you need a purely symbolic censure over a century-old atrocity committed by a long-extinct imperial entity, they're all up in that shit.

I suppose by this logic, those of us who have ancestors who were victimized by the Irish Potato Famine are entitled to a resolution as well. After all, one-quarter of the Irish population was decimated, while the country was still a net exporter of food, thanks to British landowning policies. They were literally forced to starve themselves to feed their oppressors. If that's not genocide, if that's not at least worthy of rough verbal condemnation (oh no!), then I don't know what is.

In lieu of such a polemic resolution though, since it's a different day now and there's no point in antagonizing our British friends, maybe we'd all be better off if this glorious revolutionary People's Congress, redolent with righteous mandate from eleven long months ago, could start prioritizing things a bit more sensibly. Such as maybe doing one goddamn thing to help ramp down tensions in the Middle East, before needlessly alienating one of the few remaining countries there who don't completely despise us.